Sexy Spirituality

Loving Yourself First 

• Michelle and Kathleen are women who have had a profound influence on my spiritual life and my career. I’m psyched!  
• Our topic today is “Loving Yourself First,” a primary aspect of New Thought teachings. 
• I don’t know about you folks, but getting to the place where I really love myself has been a long journey 
• You become the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. 

• Michelle: Is honored that people see her as someone who loves herself outloud. She came to that place while serving as senior minister for 17 years at New Vision CSL, having to shed her need to appear perfect. The more she was her authentic self, the more she could be love and feel love. If someone couldn’t love the real her, if she wasn’t their cup of tea, that’s okay. The deep desire to love and be loved, Real Love, couldn’t be met as long as she was hiding behind a façade. 
• Kathleen: It changes all the time, and there is so much deeper to go. She’s so grateful that instead of being the intensely driven person she thought she was supposed to be, the God of her understanding loves her exactly the way she is. She gets exhausted when she tried to be what she is not. “If you try to put me up on a pedestal, you’re just going to find that A. I need a pedicure and B. I don’t know how to hem pants.’ 
• Letting go of the voice that says, “What’s the next impressive thing I have to do so I can earn the air I breathe?”  
• Rev. Dr. Penny Macek’s truth bombs!! She helped Lezli see the belief that she was as valuable as she was useful. Oof! 
• Kathleen: Was raised to believe that if she’s not pleasing or serving people, why is she here? It’s good to see the newer generation release this old mindset. 

• Michelle: Similar concern – the busier I am, the more important I am. We often need someone to be present with us, not busy. Being too busy to do spiritual practice or foster self-growth. The younger generation is much more open to spending time, money and energy on self-development. 
• Kathleen: It’s a newer thing to love myself enough to spend the time and money on whatever I need to be the happiest. “I had a real ‘Come to Kwan Yin moment...” 
• Michelle: We believe that big and little are meaningless in the Divine. The cumulative effect of a lifetime makes a HUGE difference. We really do impact each other for Good in ways we don’t realize. 
• Kathleen: It’s like Emma Curtis Hopkins, who almost no one knows about, but her students created whole spiritual movements and taught thousands and thousands of people. 
• Michelle: Anything can be a meaningful ministry. She tells a story of a task she hated doing, and how she found a way to make it meaningful. Accessing love in every mundane task by blessing it, to make a bigger impact. 

• When you stray from the self-love path, how do you get back on track?  
• Michelle: Access self-love through the deeper process of feeling and sensing your highest self. If I’m living in that higher space, what would I really be thinking and feeling about this?  
• Kathleen: I just realize there’s a little girl inside me throwing a hissy fit because she needs a metaphysical nap. So, I just hug her. I plop myself down in Divine Mother’s lap and let her rock me. 
• Lezli: Recognize the feeling without needing to push it away, and then do the scary thing anyway. Doing that gives everyone around me permission to do their own thing, too. That’s enough to pull me out of it. 

Something Good